All 8 WordPress Plugin Checkers of 2018 (Theme Detectors Included)

Penned by Joe HowardLast updated on November 17, 2018

What theme and plugins is that site using?

This is a question we ask a lot in the WordPress community. We're constantly stumbling across other websites with dynamic functionality, beautiful design, and things we want to implement on our own sites.

But you don't have to be highly technical to use the same functionality somebody else has on their WordPress site.

In fact, WordPress plugin checkers make it possible for you to see exactly what plugins another website is using so you can implement the same ones. Or you can use a theme detector to determine the themes used.

Some of the following tools are able to find both!

Why spend hours researching what plugin another WordPress site is using when you can find out in a matter of seconds? You're better off using a plugin and theme checker for WordPress to speed things up.

1. Find The Login URL

Try to enter the URL website.com/wp-admin to see if it takes you to a WordPress login screen. If so, the website was built on WordPress! If not, and you get sent to a 404 error page, the website was most likely not.

But the webmaster may have moved the login screen to a different URL, so this doesn't always prove or disprove if a site was built on WordPress.

2. Check The Source Code

You can go to the homepage of any website, right click and select View Page Source (or something similar depending on the browser).

Then do a search on the source code page for "wp-content". If it appears throughout the source code, the website was definitely built on WordPress. It should appear plenty of times in the source code of any WordPress site, so 156 instances means we're talking WordPress.

Once you've determined that a website has been built on WordPress, it's time to figure out exactly what themes and plugins they're using with a website plugin detector!

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WordPress Plugin Checkers and Theme Detectors

This robust list of theme and WordPress plugin detectors should shed some light on how your favorites WP sites are functioning.

You may not get every theme and plugin from every tool, so use a few or all of them to get a comprehensive list of everything being used on a specific website.

1. WordPress Theme and Plugins Detector (Chrome Extension)

Checks for: themes and plugins.

The WP Theme and Plugins Detector Chrome Extension may be the easiest to-use theme and plugin detector in this entire list. The reason is it's a Chrome extension that detects the theme and plugins used on a WordPress site and display robust information about them. Plugin detection is done on a remote server and then sends the result to your browser.

Because you can simply click the Chrome extension when you're browsing on a WordPress site, there's no need to copy and paste the URL of the website in question and perform the search. It's all done with a single click.

If you're a Chrome user, this is a must-use extension that will allow you to see what plugins or themes a WordPress site is using in seconds.

2. WP Plugin Checker

Checks for: plugins only.

WordPress Plugin Checker is a simple tool used to find major plugins installed on websites powered by WordPress. It was created by Earth People, a Swedish web agency.

WP Plugin Checker does have its limitations. It can currently only tell you if plugins are installed on a site if those plugins were either built by Earth People or are in the official WordPress directory's 50 most popular plugins. If a plugin isn't in the top 50 or wasn't created by Earth People, this tool can't help you.

But if you're looking for some of the most common plugins added to WordPress sites, this tool will give you all the information you need.

3. WordPress Theme Detector by Satori

Checks for: themes only.

Another specialized theme detection tool has been created by the folks at Satori Studio. It's simply called WordPress Theme Detector. Its primary difference from the other tools is its minimalist approach to presenting the results. Only the most essential information is rendered: the scanned theme’s name, author, short description, version, and the official homepage.

The rationale is that when a person wants to find which WP theme is being used by a particular website, they most likely want to know (and possibly buy) the theme used by that website. The Detector thus gives users exactly what they want to know – the most important theme data as well as a direct link to the parent theme’s homepage.

This tool claims to work even with highly distorted cases such as websites using CSS minification plugins which remove most of the theme information from the source code. In case a website uses a highly customized theme, or cannot be accessed, or does not use WordPress at all, the Detector will output a respective message notifying the user about the specific type of issue.

The tool also makes it especially easy to search. You can skip adding the “http://” or “https://” bit to the scanned URLs – the tool will add it automatically if it is omitted.

4. WP Theme Detector

Checks for: themes and plugins.

Also known as WPTD, WP Theme Detector allows you to see what kind of plugins and themes a given WordPress site is using.

If you think a website you admire uses WordPress, all you have to do is enter its URL and hit the button. WPTD will analyze the link for you and display what themes and plugins the site is utilizing.

And WPTD gives you a lot of information.

It will not only tell you what themes a website is using, but where that theme was purchased so you can find it easily. This should work not only for traditional themes, but drag-and-drop WordPress themes as well.

As far as plugins go, it will tell you what plugins are used on the site as well as where to download them, how popular they are, and if there's a premium version you can purchase.

5. ScanWP

Checks for: themes and plugins.

Scan WP is a high-quality WordPress theme detector. That means this tool can detect the majority of plugins and themes being used on a specific WordPress site. Just enter the URL of the WordPress site in question and they'll do the rest.

ScanWP gives you a lot of information about WordPress sites, including:

Name of WordPress theme used

Price of the theme used

Tags affiliated with a theme

Where the theme was purchased

Version of the theme being used

Direct link to where you can buy the theme

All the plugins used on the website

Price of each plugin if not free

Direct link to download/purchase the plugin

This should give you most of what you need to do some website analysis on WordPress websites not owned by you and add the functionality you really like on other sites.

6. WordPress Theme Search

Checks for: themes and plugins.

Also known as What WordPress Theme Is That (WWPTIT), this is a free online tool that lets you detect what theme any WordPress site uses (including child and parent themes). To take things one step further, it will also detect what WordPress plugins are being used.

7. WhoIsWP

Checks for: themes and plugins.

WhoIsWP is another terrific digital detection tool that will assist you in figuring out what WordPress theme a WordPress site is using.

Try a quick check by simply copying and pasting the URL of any WordPress website into the WhoIsWP search box. Then, sit back and dive into the instant analysis.

8. SoftwareFindr

Checks for: themes only.

SoftwareFindr theme detector is a free online tool that allows you to quickly identify if a website is powered by WordPress or not. On top of this information, the tool will also let you see who is the theme author, the theme name, theme description, version, handy tags and more. When using this tool, the key information is linkable allowing you to find a similar design to the one you identified. Softwarefindr theme detector is quick and easy to use, just copy and paste the URL of the site you which to analyze and voila!

Who is it for?

This tool is for anyone that wants to find out if WordPress powers a website. Someone who wants to uncover the theme their favorite site is using.

Key Features?

Linkable theme tags that point you in the right direction to find other the alternative.

Hi! It means a lot to me that you wanted to know who wrote this. I’m the Head Buff at WP Buffs. I’ve been featured on Indie Hackers, WP Elevation and Kinsta. I also launched WPMRR for people who want to consistently increase their monthly recurring revenue using WordPress.